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Twitter CEO Admits Failure With Abuse

‘We suck at dealing with online abuse.’ – Twitter CEO

farklibirbakis.com

Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter is well aware of the issues his
social media network has with abuse and trolls. Taking it one step further, in
a recent memo Costolo takes sole blame for Twitter’s inability to stamp out the
abuse.

He took responsibility in two memos that were reportedly sent
out to Twitter employee’s and were then passed on to The Verge.

In the emails, Costolo admits that he’s ‘ashamed’ of how
Twitter has been handling issues of abuse and trolls.

Here’s the first memo:

‘We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform
and we've sucked at it for years. It's no secret and the rest of the world
talks about it every day. We lose core user after core user by not addressing
simple trolling issues that they face every day.

I'm frankly ashamed of how poorly we've dealt with this
issue during my tenure as CEO. It's absurd. There's no excuse for it. I take
full responsibility for not being more aggressive on this front. It's nobody
else's fault but mine, and it's embarrassing.

We're going to start kicking these people off right and left
and making sure that when they issue their ridiculous attacks, nobody hears
them.

Everybody on the leadership team knows this is vital.’

And here in the second memo Costolo is adamant to take responsibility
away from the brand and place it directly on himself.

‘Let me be very very clear about my response here. I take PERSONAL
responsibility for our failure to deal with this as a company. I thought i did
that in my note, so let me reiterate what I said, which is that I take personal
responsibility for this. I specifically said "It's nobody's fault but
mine"

We HAVE to be able to tell each other the truth, and the
truth that everybody in the world knows is that we have not effectively dealt
with this problem even remotely to the degree we should have by now, and that's
on me and nobody else. So now we're going to fix it, and I'm going to take full
responsibility for making sure that the people working night and day on this
have the resources they need to address the issue, that there are clear lines
of responsibility and accountability, and that we don't equivocate in our decisions
and choices.

Dick’

Costolo’s memo was sent to employees following on from a question
on an internal forum about a recent story about Lindy
West. West is a frequent target of trolling and abuse online. Recently,
West’s tormentors created a Twitter account for her deceased father. Utterly
mortifying stuff.

She’s not alone, Zelda Williams, daughter of the recently
deceased Robin Williams had
to quit Twitter after trolls sent her abuse including photoshopped pictures
of her father which were greatly distressing and I'm disgusted that people thought up a plan to do such a thing.

express.co.uk

I found the story about Zelda to be one of the most awful in
terms of abuse. I saw Zelda Williams at a Legend of Zelda Symphony concert,
celebrating 25 years of the game series. She was named after the princess in
the series. Zelda William’s is a happy, bubbly and lovely person. Zelda never posted
anything controversial. But in the wake of her father’s death, ‘people’ out
there deemed it fun to do these things to a grieving daughter.

I’ll never quite be able to wrap my head around why people
think this kind of stuff is enjoyable, to torment others to such a degree.

I suspect they’re very lonely, very angry and very confused.

An apology from Costolo is all good and fair. Twitter have not done nearly enough to deal with online abuse. But I feel that the issue should be handled at a much more serious level.

Tom has a degree in Creative and Professional Writing and now he currently manages, edits and writes for this blog. His other interests include Arnold Schwarzenegger films and his dog. Follow him @TomAtSMF

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